The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

ob/scene

i hesitated to put these images up; they'll remain for a day or two,
that's all. they're a psycho/logical extension/end to the problematic of
touch in Second Life or other (current) virtual worlds; sexuality is a
question of the visual, and nothing more, although touch is a promise and
a premise. avatars approach to an extent but here 'touch me' is an
impossibility and an aporia. what's chased down disappears, dries out.

these images aren't pornographic, although they appear anatomical at the
least. they were part and parcel of motion capture experiments: what if a
single sensor were inserted into the body (near the hip, the root node) -
and every other sense held still? This is the inverse of the usual state
of affairs, in which the root node is stationary and everything else
moves. So here the body becomes a sexualized writing instrument; at the
same time, it produces a genital mapping that distorts and discomforts the
viewer - as if the flesh somehow "made it" into Second Life on its own.

i request you ignore these images if explicit imagery offends you; they'll
only be up for a few days. in the installation, they remain buried deep in
the spheres, as if there were organs and membranes among the avatars that
couldn't quite be contained. here however, they're brought to the surface
by virtue of the still, hence anatomical image.

i request you ignore the texts if explicit text offends you; the text will
remain, it suggests, seduces, attacks, withdraws, pleads; it remains
buried in the unconscious, in the subconscious, in the preconscious, in
consciousness, as if there were procuring among the avatars, as if there
were love among the avatars, that couldn't quite be contained, that could
be brought to the surface, by pleading, begging, seducing, withdrawing,
withdrawing, withdrawing ...

http://www.alansondheim.org/ slab jpg series

the best get if you have the chance, is to go to the installation; at this
point you'll want to fly in, then 'stop flying' and drop into the middle
of the floor.

installation url: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Odyssey/48/12/22
mail archive:  http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/

I surprise myself. To this day I live in this dead world where men are
obscene and women forgive.

... my failure to slow down, to stop producing an obscenity of voyeur and 
exhibitionist, couplings where truth no longer exists. (Rage consumes me 
in this dead world men are obscene.)

"echoing like an obscene Narcissus splashed wet with spit's reflection, 
wrapping them together in an obscene language that sapped his body..."

debris beneath the surface, our obscene nature itself, and people thinking 
when they move the bodies of others into obscene surfaces, nature is read, 
and processed differently (than ordinary language just as etc. etc.)

I fear I have not given into my desires, have not been obscene, but then 
whoredom and other obscene couplings surprise me in a kind of proxy...

Paste is who we are, obscene twin tumors cathected into one another, bored 
through networks and cables, extensions, so said obscene Jennifer, removed 
from "this dead world where men are obscene and women forgive."

She does me - inconceivable, obscene things! I think of doing the same to 
her! I felt my shirt, wet with blood; my eyes were blinded by the obscene 
- there's no return. Jennifer: "Dignity in dying is the scene transfigur- 
ing our destruction."

... dismissive, depressive, hysteric, obscene, furious, a nuisance, a 
pest, too much video, killage obscenen and everywhere of language, to get 
at obscene auroras with their unearthly colors reflecting the future of 
destruction ...

... the presymbolic_appearance._ The obscene is that which is unspeakable, 
determinate and "wobbly." The obscene does away with culture; with my 
cock, musk comes on like an obscene lure; she presses her cunt, an obscene 
coupling, my flesh sewn back into special relativity, built up obscenely 
as the speed of light ...

This nation is obscene we worry about a breast have 2 mil in jail / i am a 
fraud a hypocrite can't write obscene i am nightmare / nation obscene 
fined symptom horror 'poor' hurting redefined building / something / some- 
time ...

- The obscene and its obscene relation to the skin - obscene cannibalism, 
torture fire, death obscenity course, proxy softness, current like obscene 
outriggers, even though it's the riding we care for, like debris beneath 
the surface - our obscene nature itself.

debris beneath the surface - our obscene nature itself.

people thinking they move the bodies of others into obscenity, obscene or 
sexual imagery. but then hir obscenely; s/he is wracked by them; the 
camera documents ... obscene or sexual imagery.

[6:38] Julu Twine: "In other words the "obscene" is processed."